


what if catgirl taylor got stuck in a tree? (omakes)

by R3N41SS4NC3



Series: catgirl taylor [2]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: omakes!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R3N41SS4NC3/pseuds/R3N41SS4NC3
Summary: a bunch of omakes written by myself and others. write something, and I'll post it here! <3
Series: catgirl taylor [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768327
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. tragedy of the commons

**Author's Note:**

> Tragedy of the Commons  
> by Allclarified https://forums.spacebattles.com/members/allclarified.406360/

"How did Contessa not see this?" Eidolon sighed, cupping his head in his hand.  
  
Doctor Mother and Alexandria glanced at one another, before the Doctor speculated: "we think it might have been a Simurgh plot. The bitch _was_ intently focused on the Caymans at the same time Contessa was taking her vacation there." She took a deeper breath. "Either that, or her questions weren't sufficiently focused. She was only supposed to _protect_ the Cat, after all."  
  
Silence filled the halls of Cauldron. The Custodian idly tucked in Eidolon's collar, as he sat there, insensate.  
  
"Let's start from the beginning," Legend prompted. "At 2100 hours--"  
  
"That wasn't the beginning," Alexandria interjected. "The beginning was two months ago."  
  
Legend glanced at her, surprised, then at the others, who weren't so surprised. "Care to fill me in?" he asked with the usual resignation.  
  
*** **_two months ago_** ***  
  
*bump*  
  
"ow!"  
  
"oh, sorry, miss--oh wow, can i have an autog--"  
  
"meow!" the cat fled.  
  
*** **_Present Day_** ***  
  
"Through the intricacies of some no-doubt Simurgh plot, Blasto got his hands on Cat's fur sample. Realizing he held the potential key to the world's Master 20, he quickly returned to his lab and began experimenting."  
  
The biotinker's visage appeared on the room's television screens.  
  
"It was the right thing to do!" Blasto had insisted. "What if The Cat was hit by a car? What if she slipped from a tree branch, or ate spoiled food from the garbage--"  
  
"Uh, you do know she's not an _actual_ cat, right?"  
  
"--can? It doesn't matter what she is, you imbecile; the world's greatest savior has a bus factor of one. What are you going to do, _wish_ her back to life? Her ability needs to be able to survive her death, and that means redundancy."  
  
"To be fair," Legend muttered, "Blasto couldn't have known about the Path on her safety."  
  
"Respectfully, Legend," Number Man corrected, "Blasto had a point. At least as far as that rant. Contessa has blind spots, and she can be interfered with. I estimated a 0.0015% chance Cat would be killed regardless, based on Endbringer activity--"  
  
"We're getting off track," Alexandria interrupted. "Blasto, at first, attempted to clone Taylor Hebert, but eventually he was able to distill the essence of what allows Taylor to summon Scion." The screen snapped to a still photograph. It was an ordinary cat. Or so it appeared. It had parahuman powers, though. Or was it paracat powers?  
  
"Having successfully ensured the continuation of Taylor's abilities, he promptly started selling these cats to the highest bidder."  
  
Eidolon's second palm met his face.  
  
"At first, the incidents weren't so major. Jack Slash got a Scion in the face. The Three Blasphemies got a Scion in the face. Sleeper got a Scion in the face.  
  
"Unfortunately, as more and more of the world's problems started getting Scions in their faces, it became all too apparent that there weren't enough Scions to go around. A Scion who is dousing a fire in New Jersey after rescuing a nearby cat is not stopping an earthquake in Brazil after rescuing _their_ nearby cat. Too many cat-owners were making demands on Scion's time, until finally it would be a surprise if he arrived on time at all. The effectiveness of the Cat-Signal steadily decreased, until..."  
  
Alexandria clicked through to the next slide.  
  
"Disaster. Palm Beach, Florida. A town whose many trees should have acted as a natural barrier to any Endbringer. Destroyed. More than ten cats were abandoned, mewing on branches, that day, and Scion didn't so much as show his face. The Cat had to be airlifted to safety after it turned out she couldn't come down--apparently a power limitation."  
  
Alexandria threw away the remote, sighing.  
  
"And there you have it. The Cat-Signal is effectively no longer working. Scion's rescues are as random as before. We're back to square one."  
  
Silence enveloped the room, once more, as the most powerful people in the world considered the problem.  
  
"There's no real choice," Doctor Mother finally decided. "We have to get Contessa on it."  
  
Eidolon lowered his head, sighing. "At least the poor things won't suffer long."  
  
*** **_Two days later_** ***  
  
"Mr Fluffykins! No!"  
  
"Let go of him now! Do it or I'll shoot!"  
  
The toddler's eyes widened. Golden light glowed behind Contessa.  
  
"Oh, f**k."  
  
*** **_One week later_** ***  
  
"And he didn't make you?" Alexandra asked, tensely.  
  
"I do not believe so," Contessa explained, "or he would not have tossed me into an ordinary jail cell. I escaped after his departure, with the help of Doormaker. Afterwards, I made sure to recalibrate the Path for stealth. The task is complete."  
  
The most powerful people in the world considered in silence, once more, before Legend finally sighed. "I'm sorry that we asked you to do this, Contessa. It must have been traumatizing."  
  
"We all do terrible things for the greater good," Alexandria spoke. "Contessa is no exception. Nonetheless, I _am_ sorry you had to be the one to do it."  
  
A tear fell from Contessa's eye.  
  
*** **_seven months later_** ***  
  
"meow."  
  
number man glanced up from his work. the echoing math told him the mewing was coming from...  
  
he glanced at the window behind his office, seeing a stray cat stretching in the courtyard behind cauldron's based.  
  
another cat entered his view. "meow."  
  
"contessa!"  
  
*** **_Three minutes later_** ***  
  
"I couldn't do it!" Contessa cried. "I know I've done horrible things: intercepted the mail, shot babies in their cribs for no apparent reason. But this! Looking into their mewing eyes, it was just too much!"  
  
"And so you brought them here?!" Eidolon demanded.  
  
"Is no one going to comment on the baby thing?" Legend asked.  
  
"Yes, yes I did!" Contessa declared. "They were too adorable to be sent away from their mummy, much less to be stranded on some uninhabited planet, with so many awful predators. Weren't you, Mr Fluffykins!"  
  
"Contessa," Alexandria silenced her, sternly. "You see, behind us, that some of these cats have escaped their enclosures."  
  
A tense calm fell upon the room.  
  
"What happens if one of them happens upon a tree?"  
  
At that moment, the facility's constant white illumination dimmed to a dark red, sirens blaring. " **Alert, alert,** " the computerized voice warned, " **Scion has appeared at the Cauldron base. Alert, alert.** "  
  
"You fool!" Eidolon screamed.  
  
"Door to Bunker #12, now!" Alexandria yelled, as the five absconded through a portal.  
  
The cat successfully rescued from the nearby branch, Scion glanced back at the human structure behind him.  
  
The smell of rotten shards was confusing him, in this place... but wasn't that a cat he could hear, trapped on some fleshy branch?  
  
Well, he would rescue it as well, the same as all the other cats this past year.


	2. canon omake: I couldn't write out the actual chapter name in the box so i put it above the chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actual chapter title:  
> Okay, so maybe i lied about the supervillain coil being a 'good guy' but i dont feel bad about it. He sucks and we all know it, even if he is forced to do a good thing every once in a while. Anyway, this chapter isn't that cracky at all and i'm not really happy with it, but its better than leaving dinah down in that pit forever, i guess. idk this isn't really even a catgirl!taylor chapter since she doesn't even show up. Anyway, 2/10 needs more taylor is suffering. you know what, i like this chapter so little its getting turned into a omake or side story or something. its semi canon, bc who give a crap about any of these characters?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is by me, but i hated it too much to make it an actual part of the story

Dinah isn’t sure if this will work, as Scion is one of the few blind spots in her precognition, but she has to try. She won’t be able to live with herself if she doesn’t at least _try_ to get out. So, she dons her handcrafted cat ears - made from scraps of paper held together with spit, like discount paper mache - and stands on top of the twig - brought into Coil’s office under the shoe of Mr. Pitter - and meows. She meows again and again and again, growing more desperate and more pitiful by the second, hoping and hoping and hoping that she can be like The Cat, that Scion, that someone, anyone, will come and rescue her.  
  
After an hour and a half of meowing through the tears, she gives up, crumples her cat ears, and falls onto her bed, sobbing with despair. No one is coming. No one knows she’s here. No one can hear her. She’s trapped and is going to be kept in this lair forever with only the company of a megalomaniacal supervillain and an uncaring butler.  
  
She prepares for another night of restless sleep, knowing that she’ll be woken too early to answer questions like always, and given drugs poorly disguised as ‘candy.’ _Chance I’ll get to go home someday? 94.35287%._ _Wait what?_  
  
Before she can question the enormous rise in percentage, the door to her cell opens and the light from Coil’s office silhouette a curvy, fit, young woman with blonde hair in a skintight catsuit. The unknown cape - because that’s what she must be, to dress like that - stands silently for a moment before cockily putting a hand on her hip and snarking.  
  
“You tried to be The Cat? Really? You must have known that wouldn’t work.” _Oh no, is this woman another of Coil’s people, sent to punish her?_ As if reading her mind, the other cape laughs and says, “relax, Dinah, I’m not with Coil. Not anymore, at least. Anyway, you coming or what?” She moves out of the open doorway, back into Coil’s office, and Dinah can see more details: the purple accents on her suit, the black domino mask, the holstered pistol, the gentle, self-assured smile. “Even if neither of us are her, you should thank The Cat someday. Without Coil protecting her for some reason, I’d never have had the chance to break in while he’s distracted. Now let’s get out of here; you’re my ticket to getting out of Coil’s thumb, and I’m sure you’d appreciate a chance for the same.”  
  
She holds out a gloved hand.  
  
 _Chance this girl will help me? 87.23856112%. Chance going with this girl will lead to more enslavement? 9.23466646%._  
  
Dinah takes her hand.


	3. i wonder what this would look like in shard view?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by megabyte https://forums.spacebattles.com/members/megabyte97.368797/

[Cycle is dull without Host] Broadcast a random shard on the network.  
  
[No waste, enlightened] Another shard shared at the obvious data.  
  
[Cycle is interesting with host, most fascinating topic: Emotions] Replied another shard that actually had a living host.  
  
[N0p3, m0s7 f4sc3n471ng 70p1c: 7r0ll, 1n73r3s71ngly 3n0ugh 4ls0 m0s7 1nfur1471ng] Replied one of the most stuck up shards in the network much to every other shard's shock. [4ls0 H0s7 1s 1n73r3s71ng, bu7 b4d, 3nj0ym3n7 1n w47ch1ng H0s7 frus7r4710ns.] And the shard was back to bragging about how its [Host] could survive even with only the minimum amount of help it is giving it and all was right in the network!  
  
[MEOW]  
  
Or not...  
  
[...Estatic... Another Mal-]  
  
The Warrior turns its attention to the misaligned shard. The network is suddenly silent as The Warrior [Looks] at the shard before it rams the cranial of the shard in question in what could be very easily described as fondness.  
  
The Warrior turns its attention to the other shards in the network.  
  
 **[No Bully]** The Warrior states before returning his attention to the cycle.  
  
The network is silently passing data between the numerous shards on what just happened.  
  
The stuck up shard [Inventory], the network agrees, puts it quite nicely.  
  
[...Holy shit, I suppose we know who the favorite is now.]  
  
[MEOW] The Queen Administrator states once more, ideally wondering how far she could push the other shards with "The Threat of Dad."


	4. the tragedy of treeboy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by Drakaitus https://forums.spacebattles.com/members/drakaitus.453236/

Me: that pizza guy looks a little suspicious...but he also has a kitty kat and a badge(it's actually a sticker), so I guess he is trust worthy.

Treeboy: Who was that Case 53? And importantly why is he a police officer? Shouldn't he be working with the PRT or something?

Me: I dunno. And Treeboy don't ask me questions, I'm just a dinosaur, I only know dinosaur things.

Treeboy: Do you think anyone is shipping me with The Cat?

Me: That is a stupid question that implies that people remember you. The answer by the way is no!

Treeboy: who else would she be shipped with though?

Me: I have composed a list.  
A) Panpan  
B) Glory Girl  
C) Hellhound  
D) Scratching post  
E) Some dude named Bri...

Treeboy: Stop! Please stop! * Runs away crying*

Me: That's just rude. He should have let me finished.


	5. the price of victory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by ccstat https://forums.spacebattles.com/members/ccstat.390100/  
> another cauldron omake! yay

Amid overwhelming chaos and confusion, a small group was quietly celebrating.  
  
Doctor Mother raised a glass. "To The Cat."  
  
"The Cat," echoed Cauldron's inner circle. Taylor Hebert had changed everything.  
  
It had started with the Endbringers, of course--her ability to summon Scion to each attack had saved many, many lives. (Rebecca had made the mistake of saying "countless lives" once, and Kurt took personal offense to the notion that it was something incalculable. Every briefing for the next two and a half years had included exact numbers -- a running total of not only lives directly saved, but also dollars of infrastructure preserved, the impact on the global economy, and the number of kittens given new homes in honor of the world's most famous hero.)  
  
But unexpectedly, or perhaps inevitably when considered in hindsight, the indirect effects were greater still. The hope of a planet no longer doomed to destruction led to a dramatic shift in the dynamics of capes, with heroes gaining the upper hand unequivocally. This was helped along by the most important factor of all: they could now predict Scion.  
  
The golden man remained a blindspot for Contessa and other precognitives, but Taylor Hebert _didn't_. It was suddenly possible to know where and when Scion would be for a varying percentage of the time: 5% on average, rising to 13% with good extrapolation, and as much as 80% on those few occasions when The Cat had endured a particularly bad day. Being able to plan around Scion's presence and actions, even to this limited degree, was a complete game changer. Cauldron was able to expand their operations dramatically not only on Bet but on the other Earths they controlled. A need for exquisite timing was no obstacle when you had a reliable Path to Victory.  
  
With the expansion, more individuals were read into the threat that Scion represented. Geniuses and thinkers, human and parahuman alike, were gathered from alternate realities to consult together and develop a plan of attack. Unbelievably, a workable strategy was developed, a cross-dimensional doomsday weapon constructed, and for the first time in decades Fortuna and Doctor Mother felt actual hope for the future.  
  
Finally, the day came to enact The Plan, and once again The Cat was the key to everything. Precise dimensional coordinates were required to aim the weapon, and it took weeks of careful calibration to align everything correctly. It would have been utterly infeasible if not for the fact that they could cause their target to appear exactly when and where they wished. A short Path (involving a plate of tuna casserole, a bag of kitty litter, and a water balloon) resulted in a piteously mewling Taylor on a carefully selected tree branch on the abandoned outskirts of Brockton Bay, hidden on the back side of Captain's Hill.  
  
As always, Scion appeared in a wash of golden light. This time, however, he had barely extended his arm when a barrage of exotic tinker material shaped into flechettes and charged with strange energies rippled through a series of dimensions and briefly intersected with his avatar on Bet before following the quantum signature they encountered there back to his home dimension to impact his true body. The world-shattering energies unleashed on that planet were the culmination of perhaps the most impressive collaboration in humanity's history, and the explosion's echoes leaked back through dimensional rifts along random paths, setting off local crises of fires, earthquakes, and occasionally more esoteric phenomena at random locations around the globe--not only on Earth Bet and the Earth where the weapon had been built and mounted, but across nearly every dimension to which Cauldron had access.  
  
It was an utter victory, an absolute success, and had been accomplished with vanishingly few casualties. And to think that before The Cat they had expected to lose trillions of lives, if they even managed to survive at all. Today was a glorious triumph!  
  
\---  
  
Despite herself, Taylor looked down and felt her claws dig deeper into the branch beneath her. Despite knowing that she couldn't possibly be more than twenty feet in the air, she couldn't see the drop below her as anything less than a yawning chasm. As embarrassing as it was to constantly get stuck in trees, her fear of them had gradually diminished over the months and years of repeated rescues. Today, that fear had all come rushing back. Scion had come, as always, but then something _fizzed_ through the air and he had simply vanished. Worse, right after he disappeared, dark clouds had formed in the previously sunny sky and proceeded to try to drown her in cold rain. Within seconds Taylor had gone from damp to bedraggled to utterly miserable.  
  
The downpour stopped almost as quickly as it started, but that was no comfort to the waterlogged catgirl. After twenty minutes she had moved on from mewling to outright yowling, but even an hour later not only had Scion still not returned, nobody _else_ had found her either! How long was she going to be stuck in this tree?!


	6. omake: what's crack without Mouse Protector, protector of mice, saviour of rodents, certifiably batshit insane slayer of cats? the eric andre show ripoff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm really not proud of this. not at all. it was fueled by spite and sadness over learning mouse protector's fate as murderrat, so i removed it as a canon chapter. mouse protector will exist as a canon character at some point, i promise.

Taylor is enjoying a nice cup of tea with her friends at the Tea Weevil, one of the many, many, _many_ teas shops to open in Brockton Bay in the last year. Amy and Vicky are both more partial to coffee, but they humor her tea loving tendencies since most tea shops have baller snacks and the atmosphere is nice. Usually Taylor prefers quieter tea shops, but the Tea Weevil's more hype vibes are nice for hanging out with Vicky; that girl can _not_ keep a low profile to save her life: always the center of attention, always gathering people, always trying to have a good time. It’s nice, having someone like that around to bleed crowds onto; Taylor wouldn’t get to leave the house without swarms of paparazzi otherwise.  
  
She inhales the aroma wafting from her cup - a slightly bitter oolong tea - and listens to Vicky’s story about the parahuman basketball league she recently joined. From what she can gather from the other girl’s storytelling, it’s like basketball but with a few extra-bendy rules and exceptions. There’s a new guy in the area who makes people’s muscles spasm and twitch, and he’s a nightmare to play against. Though, according to Vicky he’s pretty lazy, so he makes for a shit teammate.  
  
“Why does he even play, then?” Amy asks, spearing a chunk of cheese and smooshing it between two crackers.  
  
“I don’t know. Something about getting kicked out and not having anything better to do, I think,” answers Vicky. “He’s pretty shifty, so I don’t know how much I believe him. At least he’s cute, in a sort of pretty-boy way.”  
  
“You going to ask him out?” Taylor asks carefully, noticing the way Amy tenses out of the corner of her eye. That girl can be so protective of her sister. It makes her wonder what her life would be like if she had a sister like Amy or Vicky. It makes her envious of the Taylor-that-could-have-been with the lifelong support of a sister. At least she has them now. That’s not so bad, she thinks.  
  
“Ew no. He’s such a creep: hit on everyone there at least twice. Maybe he’s there just to try and score?”  
  
“Boo! Bad Vicky!” Taylor tosses a cheese cube at her. She catches it in her mouth. “No puns.”  
  
“Calm down, Tay. It was an accident, I promise,” she says after she swallows.  
  
“Yeah, I know. Just… fuck Pun Girl.”  
  
“You can say that again,” mutters Amy in agreement, sneering.  
  
“Did something happen?” Vicky asks.  
  
“No.” Amy and Taylor’s synchronous denial is forceful and Vicky backs off.  
  
“Okay, fine, nothing happened,” she says with a laugh, letting the subject drop. Silence falls over the three as they sip their tea and snack their snacks. Taylor does her best to put that awful night with Pun Girl out of her head.  
  
Luckily, a convenient distraction appears in the form of a boy, maybe 12 years old, approaching them. He’s white, with short, frizzy brown hair, in cargo shorts and a Mouse Protector t-shirt.  
  
“Um, excuse me. Are you really The Cat?”  
  
Taylor can practically hear the capitalization in his voice. “Yes, my name is Taylor. Can I help you with something?”  
  
“Can I get your autograph?!” he squeaks, fishing out a notepad and pen from his numerous pants’ pockets.  
  
“Sure.” She’s still not quite over people wanting her autograph, even though she’s given so many Amy had to fix early onset carpal tunnel. It’s like, wow, Taylor is famous! Weird. “What’s your name? How should I make it out?”  
  
“Oh, it isn’t for me; it’s for my mom.”  
  
A hero appears!  
  
“OHMYFUCKINGGOD!” Taylor screams, knocking over her tea into Vicky’s lap and drawing the irate attention of all Tea Weevil patrons. She couldn’t give less of a shit. “MOUSE PROTECTOR?!”  
  
“That’s right, foul villainess, it is I, Mouse Protector, protector of mice, slayer of cats, connoisseur of cheese, and I have come for you!” She showily, slowly, points her sword at Taylor’s face.  
  
“Me?” Taylor can barely squeak out when confronted with a pillar of independent heroism, pioneer of the ‘humiliate the villain until they give up and leave the city’ method of heroism.  
  
“Yes, you. A little ratty told me that you present a clear and present danger to all mouse-kind, and I am here to stop you from harming any more of my mousey friends.”  
  
“No! I would never hurt a mouse! Sometimes I want to, but I don’t actually do it, I swear!” Taylor’s heart is beating wildly in her ribcage from either fear or excitement. A mixture? Excifear? Fearcitement? How the heck is she supposed to feel when the face of Saturday morning cartoons calls her out for hunting mice?  
  
“Wait really? Dagnabit Nibbles, that little liar. I’ll have to take away his cheese privileges when I get home.” She sheathes her sword and leans against the back of a chair. “Do you want to be on my TV show?”  
  
Taylor’s mind is swimming, rocking, warping. “You have a show?”  
  
Mouse Protector’s eyes somehow go feral with what looks like glee.  
  
  
  
X.X  
  
  
  
Taylor wasn’t sure what a television set would look like from the inside, but this is about as nice as she would imagine. A bit more drab than she expected, with the only colors being red and brown and shades thereof. Underfoot is rust-red carpet with deep brown polka-dots. She’s sitting on a wide, comfortable, tan leather sofa-chair. Beside her is Mouse Protector, sitting behind a cheap looking brown desk. They’re both angled toward the cameras. The biggest decoration onstage is behind them both: a square thing with alternating brown and orange squares sinking toward the middle. Some sort of wooden tinkertech?  
  
Mouse Protector claps once, signaling the start of the talkshow. “So, Pussy Cat, can I call you Pussy?”  
  
“Um, I’d prefer you not. My name is Taylor.”  
  
“Great! So how long have you been bald, Pussy?”  
  
Taylor instinctively touches her hair, making sure it’s still there. “I’m not bald.”  
  
“Really? I have it in my notes-” Mouse Protector flings a notepad across the room. “-that you don’t have hair. Are you calling me a liar?”  
  
“No?”  
  
“So then you are bald?”  
  
“No. I have hair. It’s on my head, see?” She points at her head.  
  
A hand is touching her the back of her head. Taylor flinches and turns to see a woman in red and grey armor with bunny ears. “This is definitely human hair,” she says.  
  
“You heard it here folks! Bald Pussy steals human hair,” Mouse Protector announces. “A moment of screams for the bald Pussy.”  
  
Taylor flinches again as the stage speakers release horrible screams of pain. The screaming cuts off.  
  
“How long have you been a cat?” Mouse Protector asks with kind eyes. Taylor doesn’t trust them.  
  
“About a year,” she answers warily.  
  
Cheers sound from all around her. Mouse Protector jumps onto her desk to clap. A baseball little league team comes out from behind the curtains in single file and gives her a series of high-fives, saying “good game” before running off stage. When they’re all gone, Mouse Protector sits on her desk and spends the next two minutes adjusting. Taylor looks behind herself to see Ravager on her phone, playing what sounds like an app game.  
  
“Now comes my favorite part of the night,” says Mouse Protector, now laying across her desk in what looks like a horribly painful yoga pose: head dangling off the side, one hand on the floor, one grabbing the desk, both legs in the air. “The staring contest. Release the bees!”  
  
“BEES?!” Taylor screeches, digging her claws into the arms of the chair.  
  
“Aw hell no. I’m out. I ain’t dealin’ with the bees again. Too soon, babe. Too soon,” Ravager says, still looking at her phone. She wanders off stage, just before an awful buzzing begins.  
  
“Don’t worry,” MP says with a wink. “We’re not releasing actual bees. See, as a hero, I have to obey and uphold the law, and bees aren’t allowed on the metro.”  
  
Taylor has only an instant to dread the repercussions of that statement before the curtains around the stage drop and reveal the interior of a subway in motion. The passengers look at the pair oddly for a moment before the majority go back to their phones or books or staring blankly at a wall.  
  
“What the fuck.” Taylor’s heart is in her throat. Coming on this show was the worst decision of her life. Her brain feels like it’s melting and her fight or flight response has been active for way too long.  
  
“You sir,” Mouse Protector calls out. “Yes you, in the pineapples.” She’s pointing at a man dressed in half a dozen halved pineapples, secured to his body with tape. She motions to Taylor’s chair. “Please, come, sit.” To her despair, he does so, settling into the chair halfway into Taylor’s lap. She can feel the pineapple juice soak into her pants. “How long have you two been married? Is it worth it?”  
  
Taylor stops trying to understand what reality even is. She feels her soul leave her body and the world around her dulls. When her awareness surfaces, she’s surrounded by sweaty, dancing men with horse heads, so she lets go again and doesn’t come back up until she’s back at her house and sure that the nightmare is over.


	7. canon omake: The danny interlude. this tugboat is also a babyface, but weighs far more than 400 pounds

Danny hums to himself as he flips the last of the bacon in the pan, preparing his lunch. Today is going to be a good day, he can feel it. Life in the Bay has been looking up ever since Taylor became famous. Heh. It’s pretty weird to think about his little owl being known the world over. She knows Legend, for Pete’s sake! And she’s still herself, hasn’t let the fame and money change her; somehow it’s effected her positively. Every day he can see the return of more and more of the bright, intelligent, talkative person she was before Annette passed. She has friends, she smiles, she talks to him. Really, it’s all he could ever ask for and more from his child. Annette would be proud.  
  
“Mmm smells good, Dad,” Taylor says sleepily as she turns the corner from the bedrooms’ hall to the kitchen. She’s still in her pj’s, looking adorable with bedhead and one cat ear flipped inside out. She hasn’t even tucked her tail away yet: a rare surprise.  
  
“Help yourself, I made plenty,” he returns, gesturing to the already prepared plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast at the table. She plops down into a chair and starts eating. He gets back to preparing his BLT. “So, any big plans today?”  
  
“Not really,” Taylor answers around a mouthful of food. “Gonna go down to the Boardwalk after school, see if anything looks neat. Might head to the drive-in after sunset; Vicky wants to show off her new car for some reason.”  
  
That’s one thing he’s conflicted about, in regards to Taylor’s life changes. She has friends, yes, but she also has _friends_ : Amy and Victoria. He’s her father and traditionally that means taking an active role in vetting possible romantic partners and protecting her from heartbreak, but both girls seem nice and to genuinely like Taylor, so he feels like a hands-off approach might be better. The fact that either of those girls could break him like a twig _might_ play a small factor in that decision. Honestly though, he’s not sure that Taylor’s even picked up on either of their overtures. His daughter is intelligent, but no one would accuse her of being good at reading people.  
  
“That sounds like fun. Call me if you’re staying out late or need a ride, okay?” he says as he pulls the bacon out of the pan to leak grease and cool, then he grabs another plate and joins Taylor at the table.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Conversation dies down for the most part after that while the two Heberts eat. Taylor finishes before him and leaves to take a shower, dropping her dish off in the sink along the way. He finishes off his plate, drops it off in the sink with Taylor’s, assembles his lunch, and leaves for work.  
  
  
  
=^w^=  
  
  
  
Danny breathes in the salty air of the bay, soaking up the sun and the sight. It isn’t his first day at his new job, but he’s still excited. His time as the DWA’s head of hiring may be over due to a discriminatory clause of the DWA’s charter that Danny’s predecessor instated to keep gangs’ capes out, but he did what he could. He kept it afloat through the worst of the Bay’s history and, toward the end of his career there, actually put through actionable change in the Bay, due in large part to his Taylor’s influence bringing in money and work. It’s funny though; the one thing he pushed and pushed throughout his entire career turned out to be unnecessary in the end. The ferry never got reinstated by the mayor. But that’s okay.  
  
Danny steps to the edge of the wharf and _pushes_ at the constant presence inside his mind. With a spray of water, a large tugboat splashes into existence. Tugboats may not traditionally serve as passenger ferries, but Danny got a special exception from the city council when he signed up with the PRT as a rogue. There are enough studies showing what happens when parahumans don’t use their powers that the city decided that letting him run the ferry service with a paranatural tugboat would be better than him summoning an 80’ long, 5 ton boat in the middle of the city as a hero.   
  
“All aboard!” Danny calls out to the morning commuters after clambering onto the boat himself and taking his position behind the captain’s wheel. Today is going to be a good day.


End file.
